


Collagen

by LittleLinor



Category: Cardfight!! Vanguard
Genre: (the fun kind), Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 03:21:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12950217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleLinor/pseuds/LittleLinor
Summary: Chrono, Ibuki, and the marks their lives leave on each other's bodies.(aka: "that soulmate au where you get your mate's injuries printed on your body like ghostly scars")





	Collagen

**Author's Note:**

> This ship was so perfect for this au honestly, I'm so glad.

Chrono Shindou is born with a ghostly bruise on his cheek.  
His father frowns when he sees, a defensive, aggressive edge already coursing his skin, but his mother just cradles him, lightly brushing the mark with a stern yet gentler frown of her own.  
“… I hope it didn't come from their family,” she says, quietly.  
“Does it matter?”  
“I think it does.”  
Accidental carelessness wouldn't be a problem, she thinks, no matter what her husband might think. But these children… if all goes well, these children will meet. Hopefully they can protect each other.  
And it'll be easier if little Chrono doesn't have to fight one of the deepest wounds one can carry.  
But he is her son, after all. She wouldn't be surprised if he was just as determined as her, when it comes to those things.  
“Remember,” she whispers to him, later, when they're alone in the hospital room and he stares sleepily up at her face, “you have to be a child too. Lead others with your own happiness.”

Kouji Ibuki is eight when the first pale mark appears on his body.  
He almost misses it. He doesn't make a habit of looking at himself; his body is uncomfortable, like he was never meant to be really alive or human, and staring at it only makes the feeling worse. And it's easier to ignore the “careless” accidents if he doesn't look at the bruises. He fell on his own, the playground was just uneven. It's nothing.  
But it's not nothing this time, and he has to actually clean it, and he's running water over the scratched and slightly bleeding skin when he notices that the wound seems to extend much further than it should.  
Frowning, he bends down closer. Sure enough, his knee is covered in almost white lines, like skin that's most of the way through scarring, but when he runs his finger against it, he doesn't feel anything.  
It takes him several days of looking at the mark regularly to let himself think that maybe he has a soulmate after all. It had been so long, after all. He was convinced that person just didn't exist.  
_They're just better at not getting hurt!_ a fluttering, hopeful part of him says, clinging at him in excitement and relief. But that doesn't mean anything.  
Somehow, he's already stopped hoping that this magical partner will actually change his life.  
After all, it's not a guarantee. And who'd want a shy and awkward boy like him? Especially someone cool who never gets hurt?  
The mark disappears after a couple of weeks, and it hurts to be alone again.

Two years later, in the middle of class, one of his classmates screams.  
He jumps, caught by the horrible feeling that _he did something wrong again_ , but she's looking at him, eyes wide and fearful, her hands over her mouth. And now the rest of the class is doing the same, gasps rising from every corner as they look at him, and he feels a little sick.  
He looks down at his hands. His fingers look torn, the skin covered in rough-edged marks like hand-shredded paper.  
He can't breathe.  
“… Ibuki, you should go to the infirmary,” the teacher says, tight-lipped.  
He doesn't find it in himself to answer.

He stares at the white bruises and cuts on his face, that evening, and prays with everything he has that wherever they are, they're alive.  
But he goes to school the next day, despite his mother actually looking worried for once, and looks straight ahead of him as he walks the corridors, not averting his eyes from other children's shocked glances.  
Because they exist. Because he's not alone.  
Because he's not scared of being hurt. Not like this.

When Chrono is six, the bruises start getting more frequent.  
He stares at them, emptily, a slight trickle of worry running through the void of his fogged, dampened feelings.  
_Who's hurting you?_ he wonders, even if it won't change anything at all.  
There's nothing he can do. But there's nothing he can do to help Mikuru either, when she's working so hard, nothing except try to stay out of her way and take care of himself. He's too small to take proper care of her; but maybe this mysterious person is someone he could help. Maybe there he wouldn't be useless.  
It's not fair that they'd start getting hurt more again just as he's found a new home.

The bruises keep coming. But with time, they change; almost never on his face, now, but on his arms and legs mostly, especially the outside, as if they were fighting and shielding themself.  
By the time he's ten, they've virtually stopped coming.  
And then, without warning, deeper marks appear instead.  
Biting imprints, on his arms and fingers. Long lines; cuts or scratches, he's not sure. Little specks of white on his face, amost like freckles, and thin, almost invisible lines on the corners of his mouth.  
“Chrono, have you been—oh.”  
Mikuru stares at his cheek, and he checks it only to find another scratch mark, near the jaw. It's unusual; usually they're easy to hide, as if the original wounds were also meant to be.  
“It's fine,” he tells her, attempting an almost-smile. “It doesn't hurt. Don't be late to work!”  
He closes the door behind him, and hurries to school.

He's fifteen when he actually understands, and unfortunately he's not the only one.  
It's only when Shion shows him the mirror that he puts two and two together, suddenly figures out why Ryuzu had faltered in the middle of his speech and looked at his face, shock and then derision written on his face, before continuing.  
“Chrono—”  
“What happened?” he asks, voice tight and choked, and he's already rushing to Shion's small bathroom to check out the rest of his body, and oh _god_ , who did this, why did they do this, what did they _do_. “What happened!” he cries out again, trying to contain his anger and fear.  
How could he have been so stupid.  
And Ryuzu had known. Ryuzu had known who it was, just from watching the wounds form over his face.  
Ryuzu had sent someone to do this.  
“… Satoru Enishi and Rummy Labyrinth attacked the Dragon Empire branch. They almost completely destroyed the place; there weren't any casualties, but…”  
“Why didn't I notice,” he all but sobs, grabbing the edge of the sink, shaking. And the more his mind runs in circles, the more things start to take shape, because he's seen Shion and Tokoha take small injuries before, so _who_ , who was even _there_ —  
“… do you want to know?” Shion asks, quietly.  
Of course he knows. Of course everyone knows more about him than he does, as usual. But this time, he only has himself to blame.  
And he knows, he thinks, who this might be. And it just makes everything worse.  
“I want… I want to see myself…” He bites his lip. “… no. I can't face him like this. I can't. This is _all my fault_ , if I hadn't listened to Ryuzu—”  
“Chrono—”  
“You know it's true!”  
Shion falls silent. Chrono just breathes in between his teeth, trying his best to get his ourburst back under control.  
“… sorry,” he breathes, still hoarse.  
“… what are you going to do?”  
He grip the sink tighter.  
“… I'm going to go see Ryuzu. I'll confront him about this.” He grits his teeth. “And I'll fight.”

“I'll take any responsibility after we've found Chrono Shindou and brought him back to safety,” Ibuki says, dragging his bruised body through the motions as he closes in on the rest of TRY3.  
Kiba, thankfully, wasn't stupid enough to let him go completely alone (and besides, who would he be to criticise, when he already messed up so dramatically, when Chrono having been in contact with Myoujin at all is his fault to begin with); he orders a taxi to get to his car, and waits as Kiba alternates between staring at his tracker's screen and at him.  
“… what is it?”  
“… nothing,” Kiba sighs, after opening his mouth and saying nothing at all. “I believe you'll find out yourself.”  
The taxi's arrival cuts short his chance to ask him what he meant.

When he finally makes it into the room Chrono and Myoujin had been fighting in, his body screaming and aching with abuse and tension, it takes him a few moments to notice the faint white marks on Chrono's dirt-covered face, so intent was he on checking his pulse, his breathing, his solidity in his arms. But he frowns—how could Chrono's mate let themself get hurt _now_ of all times, when he needs support and stability the most, after not showing themself, as far as he's aware, for the year and half that he kept an eye on Chrono for. And where _are_ they? Aren't soulmates meant to protect each other? To support each other through life?  
He wipes away the dirt on Chrono's face as Katsuragi arrives, and was about to give him instructions when Katsuragi gasps, staring not at Chrono but at his face.  
“I'm fine,” he mutters. “He's breathing, but he's running a fever; can you contact the others?”  
Katsuragi keeps staring at him.  
“ _Katsuragi!_ ”  
“Oh. Oh boy,” he whispers instead.  
“Move!”  
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry, I'll do it, but… uh, Ibuki…”  
“What _is it_?” he almost cries from frustration.  
“I think you should look at your own face. Or touch it at least.” His eyes dart from Ibuki's face to Chrono's, then back. “… anyway, I'll go take care of it.”  
He walks off and pulls his phone out of his pocket, and Ibuki stares, blankly, too shocked to really register much aside from the warmth in his arms. And then, pushed by a strange sense of dread, he brings his hand up to his cheek, and feels the cut across it, barely noticeable in the sea of pain that was his already bruised face.  
The same cut that he now sees running pale across Chrono's cheek.  
_What on earth…_  
It's not possible. There's no way someone like Chrono could be—they're not the _same_ , not the same kind of being, there's no way someone like him who's only good to be used, someone like him who's been using Chrono all this time and got him hurt again and again, could be Chrono's soulmate.  
And if he was, then he'd have all the other bruises too, the cracked rib ones and the arms and—  
He lifts the charred hem of Chrono's shirt and freezes.  
Against the white of his ghostly bruises, the still-fresh burn mark on Chrono's stomach strikes an even starker contrast, angry purple and bruised blues and fresh red. And when Ibuki lifts his own shirt, he knows before even seeing it that the mark will be there.

“… sorry,” Chrono says, after everyone else has left them alone with the elephant in the room. “I haven't done a good job of protecting you, have I?”  
He snorts.  
“That's my line.”  
Chrono chuckles. Ibuki only frowns, Chrono's gentle cheerfulness only making things worse.  
“… I'm sorry,” he says.  
“For what?”  
“That it had to be me.”  
It's Chrono who frowns this time.  
“Don't be an idiot. I'm glad I found you.”  
“You deserve better.” _I've done nothing but hurt you._  
Chrono rolls his eyes, and extends his hand, and Ibuki, compelled, hesitantly takes it.  
It's warm. And somewhere deep inside him, the child who'd been crying for his soulmate to show him that they were still alive, that one day they'd come and take him away from the fear and pain, clings all the harder and finally lets the tears flow, curled up in the hand's embrace.  
He needs to tell him.  
He needs to tell him everything, before it's too late, before it costs him again. But right now, he can't let go of that hand. Not yet.

“I already knew all that,” Chrono chuckles, because in a way it all makes sense, has always made sense from the start.  
And destiny has nothing to do with it, at least not the way people think.  
They didn't end up entangled in each other's stories because they're soulmates. They're soulmates because from the start, they couldn't do anything other than get themselves tangled into each other.  
There was no way he wouldn't have tried to understand the infuriating, worrying, fascinating mystery that was Kouji Ibuki. No way Ibuki wouldn't have bristled at his inaction and self-centeredness, when he first found him. No way they could have helped poke and pull at each other until they understood, until they fit.  
No way two people as straightforward and protective as them would have left the other alone, once they met.  
Like an elaborate clockwork mechanism, he thinks, the intricate cogs finally ticking to life now that they're properly snugly into place.  
The marks on their bodies are merely a reminder that no one truly has to fight alone.  
(How did Ibuki ever think that he'd truly _manipulated_ him, that Chrono hadn't been fighting of his own accord? He really is an idiot, sometimes.)

Ibuki falls, air rushing past his head and blood into his chest, into his lungs, and the last thing that goes through his mind before impact is:  
_I wish you didn't have to find out._


End file.
